this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
241 points (98.8% liked)
Photography
7034 readers
112 users here now
A community to post about photography:
We allow a wide range of topics here including; your own images, technical questions, gear talk, photography blogs etc. Please be respectful and don't spam.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What equipment does it take to shoot something like this?
Camera.
Three things:
To expand a hair.
There are multiple ways of achieving high magnifications. The most obvious, and generally most expensive, is buying a macro lens. There's no real definition here, but any lens with say a 2:1 magnification or better has/can/will be marketed as macro. Note that like aperture, the ratio is inverted from what you would expect. A 1:1 lens has twice the magnification of a 2:1 lens. Macro lenses can also take great photographs, but they tend to be primes so keep that in mind if that's not your thing. Cheaper alternatives to buying a new lens include focus tubes that attach between your lens and camera, diopters that attach to the front of your lens, reverse rings to mount a lens backwards, and even using back to back lenses with one reversed.
As subjects fill the frame more you generally get less depth of field. At macro levels your depth of field can be tiny. Focus stacking comes in both in camera and post processing forms, but the general idea is that you take a series of photographs at slightly different focal lengths and slice/add/stack the sharp bits together to achieve more depth of field.
Shot setup. There are two big aspects here. The first is hinged on gear and technique. Things like tripods, flash/lighting/lighting modifiers, how you're going to actually take those shots at different focal lengths, etc all fall in here. The second is the idea to take this kind of photo. Macro photograph can be a creative rabbit hole. Having such tight framing lets you do all kinds of things that would normally be reserved for a studio shot or wouldn't be practical for wider shots. A spray bottle to mist the area can create both fog and dew. You can have near-total control over lighting without needing a huge lighting rig. You're also opening up worlds people don't normally see, so lots of things become very interesting.
Re: Focus stacking.
This is the part where I get to link my duck stacking .gif. Again!
This is far from macro, so there were only like, eight (?) relevant exposures in this stack. But you are correct in that high magnification photos taken very close to the objective can require dozens or maybe even a hundred exposures to get everything in focus.
This small ballpoint pen tip was I think around 40:
And this top-down view of the edge of a strange knife (of course) I think was pushing 100:
The texture in the backdrop there is that of an ordinary sheet of printer paper, lit obliquely with a small flashlight.
Wait, how do I expand a hair again?
I don't know what OP used, but I have done similar with a reversed lens on a DSLR camera. I got an adapter that goes on the lens where you normally put filters or the lens cap, and the other side of the adapter connects to the camera mount, so the lens is backward and works kinda like a microscope.
Unfortunately I think those pictures are long gone.
Thanks for the info!
A gun.
You Americans don't always have to go for the gun you know. These objects are quite small so a gun is kind of overkill. A teeny tiny catapult maybe? Or a slingshot? Maybe one of those spitball things?
First of all, I'm offended that you would suggest a catapult over the far superior trebuchet. Second of all, niether a catapult or a slingshot can go pew pew.
Fair enough, catapults catapult things. Slingshot with a tiny angry bird should work though? It's cube shaped, like in the game, so it has to work!